Running for Yenege Tesfa

We want to say thank you and congratulations to Timothy Smekens who represented Yenege Tesfa in the Brussels Marathon on October 7th. Wearing the organization's t-shirt, he ran 42 km and came 87^th place out of 1800 runners! Tim's efforts raised over 1000 Euros from family and friends which will go towards the operations of Yenege Tesfa. We are now lucky to have him in person, as he just arrived in Gondar to volunteer for the next three months.

Mobile School arrives in Gondar

The Belgian organization Mobile School (http://www.mobileschool.org/en) arrived in Ethiopia for the first time and is partnering with Yenege Tesfa. Trainers from Belgium came in Gondar to train two new teachers (street educators) to use the mobile school.

Mobile School trainers and teachers happy that the school finally arrived in Ethiopia!

 The mobile school is a cart on wheels, with extendable blackboards and colorful panels that are used to teach street children, meeting them wherever they are. The school is aimed to raise the self-esteem of street children and to provide them schooling since they have little access to education. The school will be taken out each week to three locations in Gondar and the exciting educational work has officially begun!

Yenege Tesfa established a new home for boys!

After many efforts the fourth Yenege Tesfa home opened, the second home for boys. The opening of the home was celebrated on the Meskel holiday with all the Yenege Tesfa children arriving at the beautiful new house to perform an artistic program. 

The new home currently has  12 boys who were taken off the street, and soon more boys will join so that there will be 17 boys overall. A father and mother moved into the home, as did an older brother, and the young boys have begun their new life full of opportunities. 

The happy boys on the way to their new home for the first time!

The new school year opened in Gondar!

In September, all the children of the four homes began a new school year, some of them for the first time ever!
The year was kicked off with an exciting day in which the children, together with hundreds of poor boys and girls from all around Gondar received  a new school uniform and school equipment from Yenege Tesfa.  

Good luck to all the students! 

Yenege Tesfa and Project T.E.N join forces for an outstanding summer camp!

Camp Bruh Tesfa - Bright Hope

School vacation was far from being without learning for Yenege Tesfa children this year! We have recently partnered with a new volunteer organisation here in Gondar - Project T.E.N., and their first task was the successful implementation of a 5 week summer camp for our children.

Conjit and the seven dwarves

The camp was planned by our 6 new volunteers and run alongside some amazing university students from Gondar's own community. The camp was packed with education - English classes, art classes, sport activities and drama classes too! Once a week there was also a themed day where we had the opportunity to bring in outside professionals with in-depth knowledge on topics such as hygiene, leadership, gender and environment.

Gevre-Michael presenting his project

The 5 weeks ended with a show of the children's talent. The older children of Yenege Tesfa worked throughout the camp on a project titled 'What Gondar means to me', and spoke beautifully when presenting their work to a hall filled with people. Their presentations were followed by a drama production that the younger children had been working on during the camp with the help of an enthusiastic and hard-working drama teacher. The story of 'Conjit and the 8 dwarves' was unbelievable to watch. The staff's hard work coupled with a grand set made up of 3 large backdrops and most importantly the confidence and talent of the children themselves, pulled off a spectacular play that packed out a hall - even the Mayor of Gondar came to watch!

All in all, the camp was a fantastic experience for everybody who took part and will be well remembered for a long time to come!